Sure. I was there a few weeks ago vacationing with friends on the cape. Summer time driving around Cape Cod is brutal. I was very surprised they weren’t in the top ten.

Perhaps you’re right about Marshall.

The author did address your point, here:

Strict constructionists since Jefferson have argued even judicial review itself is a power nowhere delegated to the federal government. That’s one of the very few powers upon which there is room for argument on both sides. But whether the power was granted or not, history clearly shows it has been used to undermine one of the most important principles of the American republic.

Actually, MA. doesn’t even make the top 10 list...

https://smartasset.com/checking-account/states-worst-drivers-2019

Lol. You have a way with words, AHO-C.

Thank you, Rose. I agree.

Not exactly. The answer is for citizens to convene, via our representatives, to re-examine what the SCOTUS has deemed constitutional, or unconstitutional, and decide for ourselves whether we agree or disagree, to extend wh**ever authority to the federal government, by the measure of 3/4 of the states.

That’s the idea. It looks good on paper.

I appreciate that, deb. Thanks.

Any power exercised by the federal government that is not among those delegated in the Constitution is power exercised without the consent of the governed.

As Americans celebrated the 242nd anniversary of their secession from Great Britain, references to the Declaration of Independence ratified on July 4, 1776 were many. But while the left reminded us “all men are created equal” and the right reminded us that all inalienable rights come from our Creator, far too little attention was paid to another phrase in Jefferson’s famous preamble: “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Judging from the way most Americans talk, almost no one remembers how that consent is supposedly obtained.

Hint: It isn’t from v****g in e******ns, but that’s what most Americans seem to believe. According to this narrative, representatives are elected democratically, and by casting one’s v**e, one consents to wh**ever legislation the representatives who win the e******n choose to pass, or wh**ever executive actions the elected president chooses to take. In the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage, surrogates for President Obama often justified that new federal endeavor with the quip, “That’s why we have e******ns.” Conservatives employ the same reasoning when their candidates win.

That raises the question: Why did the framers bother with Sections 8, 9 and 10 in Article I, Sections 2, 3 and 4 in Article II, or Sections 2 and 3 of Article III? Why did they include Article V at all?

The answer is that the aforementioned sections define the list of powers the people were consenting to, all others being reserved to the states or the people, while Article V was provided as the one and only means for the people to consent to any new powers. Put another way, any power exercised by the federal government that is not among those delegated in the Constitution is power exercised without the consent of the governed.

So, determining what the federal government should do is not “why we have e******ns.” E******ns merely decide who will exercise powers already granted.

Even this standard for establishing consent of the governed requires an extremely elastic interpretation of the word “consent.” In the end, ratification of the Constitution itself and subsequent amendments were just another series of majority v**es, each posing all the dangers to individual rights that any democratic process poses. That makes legislating without meeting even this low standard for consent even more egregious.

The word “unconstitutional” tends to obscure what’s really going on when the black robed high priests in Washington retire to deliberate on some new constitutional challenge. It’s such a stuffy, academic-sounding word that well-meaning people probably honestly believe it’s better left to the finest legal minds to determine. But what judicial review really purports to do is determine if anyone ever consented to the power being exercised by the law or executive action in question. And if the power is not listed in the original Constitution or a subsequent amendment, the answer is “no.”

That means that when the Supreme Court ruled as “constitutional” Social Security, Medicare, federal drug laws and myriad other federal legislation, it was ruling that the ratifying conventions of 1787-90 consented to the federal government having those powers right from the beginning.

That seems ludicrous, doesn’t it?

The Constitution is not written in a dead foreign language or legalese. It’s written in plain English, in a manner “We the People” can understand. It doesn’t take the finest legal minds in the country to determine which powers are granted and which are not. It’s all there in black and white. In fact, because it’s so unambiguously written, the court has had to rule constitutional most of what the federal government does outside of the military under the power granted in the Commerce Clause, which was originally proposed and ratified mainly in reaction to states erecting their own tariffs.

The assertion that by granting the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, 18th-century Americans were consenting to allow the federal government to force them to participate in a federal pension program, monopolize all health insurance for people over 65 years of age, prohibit possession or ingestion of certain plants, and even to mandate how much water Americans could have in their toilet bowls, is absurd. With few exceptions, the history of judicial review is the history of an unelected group of judges lending legitimacy and legal sanction to the federal government seizing vast new powers without the consent of the governed.

Prior to Donald Trump’s e******n, this writer heard from many conservatives and libertarians that they would v**e for Trump solely based on their fear that Hillary Clinton could appoint replacements for several aging SCOTUS judges. Many believed the ancient right to bear arms could be lost based solely on this. Two years into Trump’s term, with one appointment confirmed and Anthony Kennedy retiring from the Court, liberals now decry the imminent threat to “reproductive rights,” gay marriage and other progressive pillars. Their rhetoric and actions are becoming increasingly violent.

Surely, the founders never intended for the e******n of one man or woman to so profoundly change the legal framework of the entire nation, one way or another. This is the fruit of violating not only a set of rules spelled out in the Constitution, but for violating the fundamental principle that underpins the entire document: that the federal government will exercise no power not delegated to it, i.e., without the consent of the governed.

Strict constructionists since Jefferson have argued even judicial review itself is a power nowhere delegated to the federal government. That’s one of the very few powers upon which there is room for argument on both sides. But whether the power was granted or not, history clearly shows it has been used to undermine one of the most important principles of the American republic.

Here’s a useful rule of thumb. If it takes nine judges dozens of pages of legalese to explain how the Constitution grants a power in question to the federal government, then we should assume the power isn’t there. If there is any question at all, an amendment to the Constitution should be offered to determine if the people really do consent. That goes for all previous rulings by SCOTUS on constitutionality. If we really believe in consent of the governed, why not be sure?

Most of what the federal government currently does wouldn’t pass the test. That probably scares the heck out of a lot of people, but it really shouldn’t. It would simply allow blue states to govern themselves in much bluer fashion and red states to do so in much redder fashion. That’s by no means a perfect solution, but it would be highly preferable to the imminent civil unrest—or worse—Americans currently face as a result of letting the federal government do wh**ever it wants.

By: Tom Mullen (Friday, July 6, 2018)

(Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. For more information and more of Tom's writing, visit www.tommullen.net.)

Lol.

I couldn’t agree more!

I have my LTC as a non-resident in MA. I have yet to buy a gun there, but I know many that have. The hoops to jump through are many, but if you don’t mind waiting, it’s not that bad.

Good morning, Rose.

It has to be the worst site out there. But I absolutely love when those on the Left use it because wh**ever the information contains, it’s easily destroyed with actual facts. Even most fact checking sites accuse of it being mostly false, and clickbait for the simple minded. I hope they keep using it though, I like to think of it as a learning experience for l*****ts.

Did you know? Occupy Democrats’ memes are most always wrong in total, and always partially wrong. “Occupy Democrats” site is for people with mush for brains, and can’t think for themselves. Truly a site for the i***t’s i***t....

https://www.pewpewtactical.com/gun-laws-state/massachusetts-gun-laws/

Last month, Colorado’s legislature became the twelfth to pass the National Popular V**e Interstate Compact (NPVIC,) an agreement among the states to circumvent the constitutional method of electing the president in favor of a national popular v**e. Each state that signs the agreement would require its p**********l e*****rs to obey the results of the national popular v**e, not the results in their own state. It would come into effect when states representing a majority of e*******l v**es have signed on to the idea. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has pledged to sign the bill.

The idea has been capturing the attention of frustrated Democrats since law professor Robert W. Bennett dreamed it up after the 2000 e******n. It gained even more popularity on the left in 2016, following the e******n of Donald Trump despite Hillary Clinton’s popular v**e plurality.

As an antidote to the Democratic Party’s current difficulties in winning v**es outside of their coastal base, the compact is bound to appeal to fed-up partisans. But as a legal matter, it is flawed and almost certainly unconstitutional.

The Constitution Can Be Changed Only by Amendment

The way we change constitutional requirements like the E*******l College is detailed in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. The amendment process described there gives several ways to change the Constitution, and may be used to bring about nearly any alteration the people desire. It was, in fact, used to alter the E*******l College process three times before.

The first, in the Twelfth Amendment, approved in 1804, mandated that e*****rs v**e separately for president and vice president (before then, the vice president was the runner-up in the p**********l e******n, a system that quickly became untenable). The Fourteenth Amendment, added in 1868, barred unpardoned rebels from becoming e*****rs and requiring that states allow all of their male citizens over 21 years old to v**e for e*****rs (with a minor few exceptions). The Twenty-Third Amendment expanded the E*******l College to give the District of Columbia three e*****rs in 1961. In addition, the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments expanded the right to v**e generally, including in p**********l e******ns.

As all this makes clear, we are perfectly capable of altering the method of p**********l e******n through the amendment process, and have done so often in our history. Why, then, would the advocates of a national popular v**e not use that tried-and-true method of altering our political structures legitimately? The reason is simple: they have tried it before and failed. Instead of trying to build popular support, popular v**e advocates are now trying to get around the law through this legislative sleight of hand.

It takes more to amend the Constitution than it does to pass a simple statute, and purposely so. The Constitution is supreme over all other laws and state constitutions. As such, changes to it ought to be something that more than a bare majority desires. Laws come and go, but a Constitution is meant to have staying power and not be idly altered.

The popular v**e campaign does not have that widespread support. Time and again, amendments proposed in Congress to accomplish their desired result have failed. A quick look at the states that have joined this legally dubious effort shows that the effort is entirely one-sided—the compact has been made law in Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut, as well as the District of Columbia.

None of these states have v**ed Republican in a p**********l e******n since at least 1988. In fact, D.C. has never v**ed Republican, and Hawaii has done so only twice. The addition of Colorado will mark the first time that anything close to a swing state has joined the compact—Colorado v**ed Republican in 2004, and favored Hillary Clinton by less than 5 percent in 2016.

A narrowly partisan change to the Constitution is not likely to pass, nor should it. The changes to the E*******l College made in the 1804 and 1961 amendments had widespread support around the country, and corrected problems that nearly everyone agreed were problems. The NPVIC does not seek to remedy such an ill; it seeks victory for one side through changes in the law.

This Interstate Compact Violates the Constitution

It is a bad idea, but does that mean it’s unconstitutional? Not on those grounds alone, but the compact clearly violates the plain language of several sections of the Constitution. The first clue is in its title. Any interstate compact must raise the issue of the Compact Clause in Article I of the Constitution, which holds in relevant part that “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress … enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State.”

That’s a pretty strong statement. No penumbras and emanations here, only the unequivocal language of the Constitution that says any compact among the states must be approved by Congress. Even in those analyses of the NPVIC that support its constitutionality, http://jlsp.law.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/03/42-Pincus.pdf

authors admit that “read literally, this provision would require all agreements between states to be approved by both houses of Congress and to be signed by the President before coming into effect.”

“Read literally.” What other way should a law be read? Do the NPVIC’s advocates think the language is metaphorical? Do they suppose the Constitution’s authors were being whimsical when they wrote this phrase? Even originalists can admit that some passages in the Constitution are vague, but to read the words any way other than literally invites us to have no standard at all.

Non-literalists point to historical examples of agreements between states that never received congressional approval, yet have never been invalidated. Most of these involved border adjustments between two states, a necessity in the days of imprecise measurements. Drawing on an 1893 Supreme Court ruling in Virginia v. Tennessee, http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep148/usrep148503/usrep148503.pdf

they maintain that Congress does not need to approve all compacts, only those involving “the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.”

This is taken as evidence in the NPVIC’s favor, but it is more naturally read the other way. Even if the carve-out invented in Virginia v. Tennessee remains good law, it suggests only that minor agreements with no effect on the union as a whole should be exempt from congressional approval.

The exact contours of the Virginia-Tennessee border (the subject of that case) do not change the balance of power between the states and the federal government. While important to people living along that state line, it has no federal implications and is hardly even a compact; it is merely the clarification of an earlier (in this case, colonial) agreement on a physical boundary.

Compare that to the NPVIC, which effectively rewrites an entire section of the Constitution. The compromises struck at Philadelphia in 1787 were not made lightly. Decisions on how the president would be elected and how many v**es each state would get are the product of lengthy negotiations and trade-offs. To overturn those arrangements based on the alliance of a few states—likely not even a majority of them—turns that finely balanced design on its head.

A compact among these states that will determine the e******n of the president is the farthest thing from the minute adjustments to a colonial-era state border. The Constitution provides one method of electing a president, while the NPVIC substitutes another. Nothing could be more of an encroachment upon “the just supremacy of the United States.”

Disenfranchising Their Own Citizens

Other constitutional objections could also hinder the NPVIC. One of the biggest issues is that, while claiming to value all Americans’ right to v**e for president, the compact has the effect of disenfranchising each state’s citizens.

Imagine a scenario like the 2004 e******n, where Republican George W. Bush won a majority of the popular v**e, but did not win any of the current NPVIC member states (Colorado will be the exception to this rule when it joins the compact). The result would have been that John Kerry’s ten best states all cast their v**es for his Republican opponent. Does that make any sense? Is that the will of the v**ers in those states?

The concern is more than moral. The Fourteenth Amendment, as noted earlier, made a change to the E*******l College meant to address the former Confederate states’ efforts to disenfranchise their newly freed black citizens. Section 2 of that amendment holds that:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to v**e at any e******n for the choice of e*****rs for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in r*******n, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

In layman’s terms: if any state denies the right of adult male citizens to v**e, that state’s representation in the House of Representatives will be reduced in proportion to the percentage of such men who were disenfranchised. That is, if the state of Louisiana—which was 50.1 percent black in 1870—had refused to allow its black citizens to v**e, the number of representatives Louisiana could send to Congress would be reduced by 50.1 percent.

Despite widespread black disenfranchisement in the South following the end of Reconstruction, this provision was never enforced. It nevertheless remains valid law, and the read together with the Nineteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, it would likely prevent the disenfranchisement of any citizen aged 18 or older. The Congress that passed this amendment sought to protect the former s***es from being deprived of the right to v**e; they never imagined that a state would someday attempt to disenfranchise all of its citizens.

Yet that is clearly what the NPVIC threatens to do in removing the right to v**e for e*****rs for president. If the nationwide v**e is won by a candidate other than the one who won in that state, the state’s e*****rs would nevertheless v**e for that candidate. This would sever the connection between the v**ers and the e*****rs, disenfranchising the people and jeopardizing the state’s representation in the House.

Fantasy E******ns

Even if the NPVIC were constitutional, and even if enough states joined it to bring it into effect, there is no guarantee that the result would suit Democrats any better than the current system. We don’t know who would have won a national popular v**e contest in 2016 because no one, at present, has ever tried to win one.

Any campaign worth its salt tries to win the actual e******n, not the fantasy e******n we call the popular v**e. Republicans do not campaign in California, even though citizens of that state cast 4,483,810 v**es for Trump in 2016, more than any state except Florida and Texas. Likewise, Democrats do not waste much time or money in Texas in p**********l e******ns, even though Clinton got more v**es out of the Lone Star State than any state but three. (Clinton also did not expend much effort in much closer states like Wisconsin and Michigan.)

Could Trump have gotten more v**es out of California if his campaign had spent time and resources there to get out the v**e? Of course he could, but it would not have been enough to overcome Clinton’s massive advantage there, so they did not bother. At the same time, many conservative Californians likely sat home, knowing their v**es would not tip the state to Trump. This is the heart of the NPVIC advocates’ case for a popular v**e, yet they fail to see how it cuts against them just as much. We don’t know who would win a national popular v**e, because we’ve never really had one.

Losing two e******ns in the E*******l College despite popular v**e pluralities is bound to frustrate partisans on the left, and it has seemingly driven some of them to embrace radical, nonsensical solutions. Emotions run high in e*******l politics, but they cannot overcome the t***h of what the Constitution does and does not allow. Proponents of a popular v**e are free to amend the Constitution if they can but until they do so, they must respect the rule of law and accept the results of e******ns.

By: Kyle Sammin

(He is a lawyer from Pennsylvania, a senior contributor to The Federalist, and the co-host of the Conservative Minds podcast. Read some of his other writing at his website, or follow him on Twitter at @KyleSammin.)



(A side note: since this publication, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Colorado secretary of state violated the Constitution in 2016 when he removed an e*****r and nullified his v**e when the e*****r refused to cast his b****t for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular v**e.)

It does kind of boggle the mind, doesn’t it.

Thank you, Radiance. Very kind of you. I may do at least one more essay, the next one, only because it happens to be my favorite one. Always a pleasure to read your commentary.

Thank you as always, Radiance.

But, I’m thinking about discontinuing this series though, not getting nearly the views it once did. Seems only a select few are interested anymore. Thanks again for your interest.